There is a constant this year at the beginning of the television season. CBS dominates Tuesday through Friday, arguably the most important shopping alert days of the week. If you are a brand, a retailer or a manufacturer, this is something you can count on for the largest audience on those days. Again, this Thursday began as it always does with ‘The Big Bang Theory’ at 8P pulling in the evening’s largest numbers, 18.94 million viewers. At 830P, ‘The Miller’s’, taking full advantage of such a tremendous lead-in, drew 11.78 million. At 9P, ‘The Crazy Ones’ with a hilarious story about how Robin Williams’ character is a legend (not unlike Jim C.) in inter-company softball. While already smiling, you break out in laughter. It led all of its broadcast competition in that hour with 8.73 million viewers. At 930P, ‘Two and 1/2 Men’ drop slightly, still maintaining the network’s #1 position among broadcast, with 8.69 million before ‘Elementary’ at 10P brings home the final victory with 9.24 million, edging ahead of ‘Scandal’ and tripling ‘Parenthood’.
ABC, getting off to a dreadful start at 8P with ‘Once Upon A Time in Wonderland’ drawing 3.51 million. ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ powered up with 8.48 million at 9P while ‘Scandal’ came close at 10P with 8.83 million. If the suits at The Alphabet Network can fix 8P, then it has quite a challenging night on the schedule.
Univision with the ‘Latin Grammy Awards’ finished #2 at 8P on all broadcast networks and #4 overall for the evening after being #3 at 9P and #3 at 10P.
NBC really needs to get rid of its entire Thursday evening schedule. There is absolutely no hope for any of the programs as they continually under perform each and every week. At 8P, ‘Parks and Recreation’ was ill-conceived and draws 2.94 million. At 830P, it does worse with 2.69 million. At 9P, ‘Sean Saves the World’ isn’t the answer as it pulled in 2.97 milliojn and at 930P, even from its first episode, ‘The Michael J. Fox Show’ is not ready for prime time. This week it drew 2.8 million loyal Michael J. Fox fans, relatives and friends. At 10P, ‘Parenthood’ was the network’s highest draw of the evening with a completely disturbing 3.61 million. If the affiliates won’t ask, then it is incumbent on everyone who writes and talks and views television to say that if The Peacock Network continues this, every NB affiliate in the nation will draw less and less at the all important 11P local newscasts. Change Thursday now.
FOX at 8P has ‘The X Factor’, down considerable from its peak, now draws 5.88 million. At 9P, ‘Glee’ is a whisper of its former self by drawing 4.44 million.
The CW was actually competitive with NBC and ABC at 8P as ‘The Vampire Diaries’ drew 2.9 milion viewers. At 9P, ‘Reign’ allowed ‘Sean To Save’ finish ahead of it by having only 2.19 million watch it.
It should be noted that due to the NFL Thursday Night Football game on the NFL Network between the victorious New Orleans Saints against the Atlanta Falcons, the game was simulcast on the CW affiliate in Atlanta and the FOX affiliate in New Orleans. The CW and FOX results nationally may be inflated and subject to more than just typical adjustments in the finals overnights. The game was the #1 program on cable, drawing 7.683 million viewers. For the evening it averaged 6.881 million viewers USA Network drew an average of 2.513 million for #2.
With all of this taken into consideration, it is an absolute tribute to Jay Leno for bringing NBC back up on its feet and winning Late Night with 2.7/7. He had no help from the network. Meanwhile, CBS’ ‘Letterman’ and ABC’s ‘Kimmel’ tied with a 2.4/7. ‘Fallon’ with all the help in the world from Leno, tied ‘Nightline’ with 1.5/5 while CBS’ ‘Ferguson’ dropped to 1.1/4. Carson Daly at 135A finished with a 0.8/3.
For the record, CBS was #1 with 11.034 million viewers and a 6.9 rating and 11 share. ABC finished with 6.941 million viewers and a 4.7/8. The NFL Network drew 6.881 milion viewers; FOX came next with 5.156 million viewers and a 3.2/5. Univision finished ahead of The Peacock Network with 4.3 million and a 2.2/4. NBC drew 3.102 million viewers and a 2.1/3, while The CW finished with an average of 2.549 million viewers and a 1.6/3; USA Network brought in an average of 2.513 million viewers. Telemundo finished with 1.3 million viewers and a 0.7/1.
ACROSS THE POND:
ITV’s ‘I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!’ drew 9.7 million viewers at 9P, good for #1 in the UK for the evening as 41.1% share of audience was gained.
Meanwhile, competition abound with BBC One’s ‘Panorama, Britain’s Secret Terror Force’ drew 2.2 million (0.1%) at 9P.
2.2 million viewers (9.7%) sat down to watch BBC2’s the origins of Doctor Who in ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’ a 9P while 700,000 viewers watched on BBC4 to see the first ever episode of the adventure from 1963.
Channel 4’s mental health documentary, ‘Bedlam’ was viewed by 1.1 million at 9P as well, good for 4.6% share.
Of note, E4’s running of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ drew 1.4 million viewers (5.9%) at 830P.
PRODUCTION NOTES:
Chi McBride was promoted to a series regular on CBS’ ‘Hawaii Five-O’. As HPD Captain Lou Grover, McBride is McGarrett’s pain-in-the-side. But McBride is a fan favorite due to his superb breakthrough performance in ‘Boston Public’, FOX’s ‘Human Target’ and most recently on CBS’ ‘Golden Boy’.
PROGRAMMING NOTES:
NBC has announced the Saturday Night Live guest line ups: Paul Rudd (Dec 7 with musical guests One Direction); John Goodman (Dec 14 with Kings of Leon) and Jimmy Fallon (Dec 21 with musical superstar, Justin Timberlake).
And if you already didn’t know ‘NCIS’ was big, consider this: FOX Japan will run a 10 day marathon of the CBS’ #1 drama. The marathon begins on Sunday, December 29 at 11P and leads into the premiere of the procedural’s current eleventh season on FOX Japan.
As you can see, people were watching television on Thursday evening and were…
Switching Channels!
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